Monday, October 8, 2012

Mike sent me a message this afternoon and said he was going up in the big Cub after work. He said to see if another aeroplane was available so I could tag along. I'm not current in the Champ (it's all that was available when I called Stewart) so I was planning on a quick re-checkout with Emerson. However, the little Cub opened up when I got there so I grabbed the J-3's keys instead.

I propped Mike (which took a while - nothing like a slightly flooded C-85 to make hand-propping a fun process...) and he took off, heading south along the valley. Tommy had just pulled into the airport and decided to join along in the T-Craft. He propped me and then the two of us took off together in loose formation about fifteen minutes after Mike had launched.

Vintage aviating - thanks to Elizabeth for the great photo!

Tommy turned east out of the pattern and I flew off his right wing as we headed towards the lake. We traded positions and he slid in off my left wing as I slowly turned back towards the airport. I spotted Mike in the other Cub at that point and the two of us joined up on him. You can see how that turned out above.

We followed Mike into the pattern, flew an extended downwind while he landed, and then made a pass over the runway together. A couple solo passes later, the sun was sitting just below the horizon. I slipped over the power lines for a near-greaser and Tommy followed behind me.

The air was about as smooth as you'll ever find tonight. Just a perfect evening for this kind of flying. The fall colors are getting good around here, too - though I didn't get to spend too much time looking at them today. All in all, it was definitely an awesome night for any pilot!